Yama: the pit eBook

Lichonin raised the shade. There were the usual
furnishings of a poor student: a sagging, unmade
bed with a crumpled blanket; a lame table, and on
it a candlestick without a candle; several books on
the floor and on the table; cigarette stubs everywhere;
and opposite the bed, along the other wall, an old,
old divan, upon which at the present moment was sleeping
and snoring, with mouth wide open, some young man
with black hair and moustache. The collar of
his shirt was unbuttoned and through its opening could
be seen the chest and black hair, the like of which
for thickness and curliness could be found only on
Persian lambs.

“Nijeradze! Hey, Nijeradze, get up!”
cried Lichonin and prodded the sleeper in the ribs.
“Prince!”

“M-m-m...”

“May your race be even accursed in the person
of your ancestors and descendants! May they even
be exiled from the heights of the beauteous Caucasus!
May they even never behold the blessed Georgia!
Get up, you skunk! Get up you Aravian dromedary!
Kintoshka! ...”

But suddenly, unexpectedly for Lichonin, Liubka intervened.
She took him by the arm and said timidly:

Lichonin was abashed. So strange did the intervention
of this silent, apparently sleepy girl, appear to
him. Of course, he did not grasp that she was
actuated by an instinctive, unconscious pity for a
man who had not had enough sleep; or, perhaps, a professional
regard for the sleep of other people. But the
astonishment was only momentary. For some reason
he became offended. He raised the hand of the
recumbent man, which hung down to the floor, with
the extinguished cigarette still remaining between
its fingers, and, shaking it hard, he said in a serious,
almost severe voice:

“Listen, now, Nijeradze, I’m asking you
seriously. Understand, now, may the devil take
you that I’m not alone, but with a woman.
Swine!”

It was as though a miracle had happened: the
lying man suddenly jumped up, as though some spring
of unusual force had instantaneously unwound under
him. He sat down on the divan, rapidly rubbed
with his palms his eyes, forehead, temples; saw the
woman, became confused at once, and muttered, hastily
buttoning his blouse:

“Is that you, Lichonin? And here I was
waiting and waiting for you and fell asleep.
Request the unknown comrade to turn away for just
a minute.”

He hastily pulled on his gray, everyday student’s
coat, and rumpled up with all the fingers of both
his hands his luxuriant black curls. Liubka,
with the coquetry natural to all women, no matter
in what years or situation they find themselves, walked
up to the sliver of a mirror hanging on the wall,
to fix her hair-dress. Nijeradze askance, questioningly,
only with the movement of his eyes, indicated her
to Lichonin.